:''this article is on the Anglican church in particular. See
orthopraxis for ritualism in general.''
'Ritualism', in the history of
Christianity, refers an emphasis on the
rituals and ceremony of the church, in particular of
Holy Communion.
In the
Anglican church the role of ritual became a subject of great, often heated, debate in the nineteenth century, a debate that was associated with struggles between
High Church and
Low Church movements. Opponents of Ritualism considered that it privileged the 'actions' of the ritual over the 'meanings' that are meant to be conveyed by it. Supporters believed that a renewed emphasis on ritual was necessary to counter the increasing
secularisation of the church and laity.
Defining Ritualism in the Church of England and the arguments generated by it
In
Anglicanism, the term "ritualist" is controversial (i.e. rejected by some of those to whom it is applied) and often used to describe the second generation of the
Oxford Movement/
Anglo-Catholic/
High Church revival of the
19th century which sought to introduce into the
Church of England a range of
Catholic liturgical practices. The term is also used to describe those who follow in their tradition.
When trying to decipher the argument about Ritualism in the
Church of England, it is worth remembering that it is partly shaped by opposing (and often unannounced) attitudes towards the concept of ''
sola scriptura'' and the nature of the authority of the
Bible for Christians.
Common arguments used by some Anglicans in favour of Ritualism
Those who 'support' the Ritualist outlook in the Church of England have often argued that the adoption of key elements of
Catholic ritual
★ gives liturgical expression to the
ecclesiological belief that the
Church of England is more
Catholic than
Protestant;
★ gives liturgical expression to a belief in the
Real Presence and its concommitant that the
Eucharist is the most important act of Church worship and should be the norm;
★ is the most effective vehicle for giving expression to the worship of
heaven as it is described in the
Book of Revelation in which the use of white robes and
incense in a setting of considerable beauty is described;
★ is a liturgical expression of the story in the
Gospel of Matthew of the response of the
Magi to the birth of
Jesus who brought gifts of
gold,
frankincense, and
myrrh as an act of
adoration;
★ enables worshippers to use all of their senses in
worship - worship with the whole person, not just the mind;
★ is "
incarnational" - by placing an emphasis on liturgical action and physical objects, it draws attention to the importance that Christians should attach to the fact that they believe that, in
Jesus, "the Word became flesh" ():
material things are part of what God makes and saves, and not repudiated by Him;
★ is the most effective form of
worship for cultures that are either highly visual or in which
literacy rates are low;
★ is beautiful and an expression of the human response to God that calls on humans to offer their best in worship - a way of expressing the value ("worth") that they place on God: worship is,
etymologically, "worth-ship".
Common arguments used by some Anglicans against Ritualism
Those who 'oppose' Ritualism in the
Church of England have generally argued that it:
★ encourages
idolatry in that it encourages worshippers to focus on ritual objects and actions rather than the things they are meant to symbolise;
★ constitutes an attempt to wrest the
Church of England from its
Protestant identity;
★ constitutes a downgrading of the significance of
preaching and biblical exposition in regular Christian worship;
★ encourages an idolatrous attitude to the
Eucharist because Ritualism is predicated on a belief in the
Real Presence;
★ uses excessive elaborations in worship that cannot be justified on the basis of the descriptions of worship in the
Gospels, the
Acts of the Apostles, or the
Epistles in the
New Testament;
★ undermines a key
Protestant belief that no human actions, even worship precisely and carefully offered, can be of any value when it comes to being
justified in the eyes of God: worship should be an unfussy, obedient,
penitent, grateful, and sponaneously joyful response to the experience of
being saved by faith in
Jesus - ritual and tradition are merely human inventions;
★ has often impeded the understanding of the gospel by wrapping up
Christian worship in indecipherable
symbolic acts.
The Ritualist Controversies in the Church of England in the 19th century
The origins of Ritualism in the Church of England
A "fiddleback" chasuble, the use of which by the priest could lead to prosecution
The development of Ritualism in the Church of England is mainly associated with what is commonly called "Second Generation"
Anglo-Catholicism, i.e. the movement as it developed after
Newman left the
Church of England to become a
Roman Catholic in
1845. It can be argued that there was a kind of inevitability to the fact that some of the leaders of
Anglo-Catholicism turned their attentions to questions of
liturgy and
ritual and started to champion the use of
Roman Catholic practices and forms of
worship - although there was only a limited enthusiasm amongst Ritualists for trying to introduce the widespread use of
Latin in the
liturgy.
Where does the perception of the inevitability of the growth of this
liturgical preoccupation spring from? The answer lies in the nature of the origins of the
Oxford Movement. The leaders of the first generation of the
Anglo-Catholic revival (e.g.
Newman,
Pusey, and
Keble) had been primarily concerned with
theological and
ecclesiological questions and had little concern with questions of
ritual, i.e. they championed the view that the fundamental identity of the
Church of England was
Catholic rather than
Reformed - they had not been concerned with
liturgical reform and had argued that
Anglicans were bound by obedience to the use of the
Book of Common Prayer. ''
Tract 3'' of the ''
Tracts for the Times'' had strenuously argued against any revision of the
Book of Common Prayer and saw its use as a matter of absolute obligation. Even ''
Tract 90'', which is an analysis of the ''
39 Articles'' and perhaps the high water mark of the development of the first generation of
Anglo-Catholicism, insofar as the ritual aspects of liturgical practice is touched on by the ''
Articles'', is far more concerned with the theological dimension of the issue than any question of altering current liturgical practice in the
Church of England.
However, from an ecclesiological point of view, this all seemed to beg the question: "If the
Church of England is truly
Catholic in its identity, why does it not more visibly express this fact in its worship?" In other words, Ritualism in the late nineteenth century Church of England was, at one level, doing no more than giving
liturgical expression to the theological conviction that the
Church of England had sustained a fundamentally Catholic character after the
Reformation. However, in some circles, this shift of focus to the question of ritual proved to be every bit as provocative as the theological assertions of the first generation of
Anglo-Catholicism had been.
The clearest illustration of the shift that took place within
Anglo-Catholicism from theological to liturgical questions is to be found in
Pusey's attitude towards Ritualism. Pusey, the only pre-eminent first-generation leader of
Anglo-Catholicism to survive into the second generation, had no sympathy with the preoccupation with
ritual: he once famously asked, "What is a
cope?", a question displaying an ignorance of
ritual that no self-respecting Ritualist would dare display. However, when priests started to be prosecuted and imprisoned as a result of the
Public Worship Regulation Act 1874,
Pusey was quick to show his support for those who were prosecuted.
The early Ritualist controversies in 19th century England
"Smells and Bells": the controversial ritual practices
From the
1850s to the
1890s, the following
liturgical practices espoused by many Ritualists led to some occasional and intense local controversies - some leading to prosecutions (most notably as a result of the
Public Worship Regulation Act 1874):
★ the use of
vestments such as the
chasuble,
stole,
alb,
maniple,
cotta,
biretta,
cope, and
mitre,
★ the use of a
thurible and
incense,
★ putting six candles on the High
Altar,
★ making the
sign of the cross
★ the use of unleavened (wafer) bread in
communion,
★ eastward facing celebration of the
Eucharist (when the priest celebrates Communion facing the altar from the same side as the people, i.e. the priest faces east with the people, instead of standing at the "north side" of the "table" placed in the chancel or body of the church, as required by the 1662 Book of Common Prayer),
★ the use of
bells at the
elevation of the
host,
★ the use of
Catholic terminology such as describing the
Eucharist as the "
Mass",
★ the use of liturgical
processions,
★ the decoration of Churches with statues of saints, pictures of religious scenes, and
icons;
★ the veneration of the
Blessed Virgin Mary and the practice of the invocation of the
saints,
★ the practice of
Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, and
it must also be noted (see the
Cambridge Camden Society) that the Ritualist movement also played a substantial role in promoting
★ the restoration of
chancels in
Parish Churches, and
★ the use of robed
choirs seated in the
chancel accompanied by
pipe organ rather than by a
Church band and seated in a
West Gallery at the back of the Church.
The prosecution and conviction of
Arthur Tooth in
1876,
Sidney Faithorn Green in
1879 and
Richard William Enraght in
1880 are good illustrative examples of the kind of issues that could be involved in controversies caused by these liturgical practices. The prosecutions (which were often instigated by the
Church Association) gave considerable impetus to the foundation and work of the
English Church Union. SSC (the
Society of the Holy Cross) played a crucial role in championing and developing the use of elements of proscribed
Catholic ritual in
Anglicanism.
The perception of Ritualism as a threat to English identity
For many who opposed Ritualism, the key concern was to defend what they saw as the fundamentally
Protestant identity of the
Church of England. Nor was this just a matter of an
ecclesiological argument: for many, there was a sense that
Catholic worship is somehow "unEnglish".
Catholicism was deeply associated in many minds with cultural identities which, historically, many
English people had commonly treated with suspicion, especially the
Spanish, the
French, and the
Irish.
For an ideological defence of this position, it was argued that
English identity was closely tied in with England's history as a
Protestant country that, after the
Reformation, had played a key role in opposing
Catholic powers in Continental Europe (especially
Spain and then
France). In the minds of such people, Protestantism was inextricably identified with anti-
despotic values and Catholicism with
autocracy that, in the religious arena, hid behind the "disguise" of such things as complicated rituals whose meaning deliberately lacked transparency. The opposition to Ritualism therefore had a deeply cultural and
symbolic significance that extended far beyond purely
theological concerns.
Ritualists themselves were often at pains to try and present the "Englishness" of the Ritual they championed by (mostly) keeping English as the language of the liturgy and reconstructing
Anglo-Catholicism as a recovery of pre-
Reformation Catholic forms that were specifically English: a revival of interest in the
Sarum Rite (the pre-
Reformation Catholic liturgy of
Salisbury) was sparked off by the Ritualist movement. This tendency was also often expressed in such details as the revival in the use of the pre-Reformation
Gothic forms rather than the
Baroque — the Baroque was more closely linked in the minds of many with specifically continental and
Counter Reformation forms.
Ritualism and Christian Socialism
Although Ritualism had an aesthetic and ideological appeal for many in the cultural elite, and had a cognate relationship with the
Gothic Revival, the idea that it was inextricably linked with an inclination towards political despotism was a misapprehension. Certainly, Ritualism had an appeal for many who were politically
conservative and had supporters highly placed in the establishment (e.g.
Viscount Halifax and
the 4th Marquess of Bath). However, the outlook of many of the Ritualist
clergy themselves, many of whom inevitably operated in some of the most deprived communities in England, resulted in their becoming politically radicalised by the experience — some became ardent
Christian Socialists.
Anti-Ritualism, homophobia, and "muscular Christianity"
In the spectrum of hostility that it aroused, Ritualism also provoked in some of its opponents a
homophobic reaction that saw its theatricality and its aestheticism as symptoms of "
effeminacy".
[1] A typical charge was that ritualistic clergy were "man milliners," more concerned with lace and brocade than doctrine. This reaction played a significant role in the evolution of the
Broad and
Low Church enthusiasm for "
muscular Christianity".
Ritualism and the outreach of the Church of England to the unchurched urban poor
One of the key ideological justifications used by many of the early Ritualists, apart from the fact that it was a
symbolic way of affirming their belief in the essentially
Catholic nature of
Anglicanism, was the argument that it provided a particularly effective medium for bringing
Christianity to the poorest, "
slum parishes" of the
Church of England.
It was argued that
ritual and
aesthetically impressive
liturgy did not only provide a powerful contrast to the drabness of the lives of the poor, its emphasis on
symbol and action rather than word was a more effective medium for spreading
Christian faith in areas with poor
literacy rates than the highly cerebral and
logocentric worship that was focused on the
Book of Common Prayer. This argument may have had some merits, but, very often, the respect that the most successful ritualists often gained in the highly impoverished communities they went to serve was based on the fact that they had successfully expressed a genuine
pastoral concern for the poor amongst whom they lived.
The argument for Ritualism in
Anglicanism was also based on the slightly misleading
analogy with the success of the Roman Catholic Church amongst the highly impoverished
Irish migrant communities in the urban areas of
England - it was argued by some that ritual played a key role in the growth of the
Roman Catholic Church amongst the poor. However, this argument sometimes overlooked or ignored the fact that the use of ritual probably played little more than a subsidiary role in the success of the
Catholic Church in this area: its success was probably largely due to a special cultural identity that many
Irish migrants felt with the
Roman Catholic Church as one of the few institutions that they encountered in
diaspora that was also a key feature of life in their country of origin.
Drawing conclusions from the Ritualist controversies in the Church of England
The legacy of the Ritualist controversies in the Church of England
Despite, or because of, the heat created within the Church of England by the Ritualist controversies the use of
vestments and wafer bread for the
Eucharist became widespread, even normal, in the
Church of England for much of the
20th Century.
Although most members of the
Church of England today would still be uncomfortable or sceptical about certain Catholic liturgical practices, they are often astonished to be told that, in the late 19th century, using
incense, wearing
vestments, putting candles on the
altar, and using unleavened (wafer) bread in the
Eucharist could spark riots, put
priests in prison, and even lead in
1888–
90 to the prosecution of a bishop —
Edward King,
bishop of Lincoln.
Deciphering and evaluating the cultural significance of Ritualism in the Church of England
Perhaps one reflection needs to be made in the light of that aspect of the Ritualist controversy that took it into some of the most economically marginalised communities in
England: maybe it needs to be asked whether part of the appeal of Ritualism, in common with the
Gothic Revival in architecture and the revival of interest in Chivalric forms in art and literature, is an essentially Romantic and nostalgic protest against the growth of industrial and machine civilisation. However, even if such a speculation is true, it cannot provide a global explanation for the phenomenon of Ritualism or its attendant controversies.
From the point of view of many of those open to persuasion by the Ritualist position,
theologically speaking, there can be little doubt that Ritualism, at its best, gave expression to a profoundly
incarnational theology that sought to engage the whole body and the imagination in worship — and gave a vehicle for the expression of
paternalistic concern for the poor amongst its politically conservative supporters and a passionate enthusiasm for improving the lot of the powerless amongst its more politically radical supporters.
References
1. David Hilliard: "UnEnglish and Unmanly: Anglo-Catholicism and Homosexuality": Victorian Studies: (Winter 1982): 181–210.
Bibliography
★ James Bentley: ''Ritualism and Politics in Victorian Britain'': Oxford: Oxford University Press: 1978: ISBN 0-19-826714-2
★ Linda Ellsworth: ''Charles Lowder and the Ritualist Movement'': London: Darlton, Longman and Todd: 1982: ISBN 0-232-51535-2
★ Gary Graber: ''Ritual Legislation in the Victorian Church of England: Antecedents and Passage of the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874'': San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press: 1993: ISBN 0-7734-2216-1
★ David Hilliard: "
UnEnglish and Unmanly: Anglo-Catholicism and Homosexuality": ''Victorian Studies'': (Winter 1982): 181–210.
★ Kenneth Hylson-Smith: ''High Churchmanship in the Church of England: From the Sixteenth to the Late Twentieth Centuries'': Edinburgh: T&T Clark: 1993: ISBN 0-567-09623-8
★ John Shelton Reed: ''Glorious Battle: The Cultural Politics of Victorian Anglo-Catholicism'': Nashville & London: Vanderbilt University Press,: 1996: ISBN 0-8265-1274-7
★ Frank Reynolds: ''Martyr of Ritualism: Father MacKonochie of St Albans, Holborn'': London: Faber and Faber: 1965.
★ Martin Wellings, ''Evangelicals Embattled: Responses of Evangelicals in the Church of England to Ritualism, Darwinism and Theological Liberalism (1890–1930):'' Carlisle: Paternoster Press: 2003: ISBN 1-84227-049-4
★ James Whisenant: A ''Fragile Unity: Anti-Ritualism and the Division of Anglican Evangelicalism in the Nineteenth Century'': Carlisle: Paternoster Press: 2003: ISBN 1-84227-105-9
★ Nigel Yates: ''Anglican Ritualism in Victorian Britain: (1830–1910)''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999: ISBN 0-19-826989-7
See also
★
Anglicanism
★
Anglo-Catholicism
★
The Book of Common Prayer
★
Cambridge Camden Society
★
Christian Social Union
★ The
Church Association
★
The Church of England
★
Richard William Enraght (prosecuted for Ritualist practices)
★
T. Pelham Dale (prosecuted for Ritualist practices)
★
Percy Dearmer
★
James DeKoven
★
George Anthony Denison
★
Robert William Radclyffe Dolling
★
Charles Fuge Lowder
★
Alexander Heriot Mackonochie
★ The
English Church Union
★ The
English Hymnal
★
Legalism (theology)
★
Liturgical Movement
★
Gothic Revival
★
William Augustus Mühlenberg
★ The
Oxford Movement
★
Public Worship Regulation Act 1874
★
John Purchas
★
John Charles Ryle
★
SSC (Society of the Holy Cross)
★
Arthur Tooth (prosecuted for Ritualist practices)
★
Vestments controversy
★
Walsingham
External links
★
Project Canterbury: Ritualism
★
SSC Official Website
★
The Church Union Official Website
★
Anglo-Catholic Socialism
★
Contemporary views on ritualism as expressed by Church Society (the current form of the anti-Ritualist Church Association)
★
A contemporary view of the Ritualist controversies from one of its qualified supporters: Archdeacon Denison
★
Infed's take on Muscular Christianity
★
"Scarfs or Stoles?" - An Evangelical Anglican critique of the use of vestments
★
"The Teaching of the Ritualists not the Teaching of the Church of England", by John Charles Ryle critical of Ritualism
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